The passage of time since September 11, 2001, has not diminished the distrust many of us feel surrounding the official story of how 9/11 happened and, more specifically, who financed and supported it. After eleven years, the time has come for the families of the victims, the survivors and all Americans to get the whole story behind 9/11.

Yet the story of who may have facilitated the 19 hijackers and the infrastructure that supported the attacks — a crucial element of the narrative — has not been told. The pieces we do have underscore how much more remains unknown.

Did the hijackers execute the plot alone, or did they have the support of forces other than the known leaders of al-Qaeda — a network even — that provided funds, assistance, and cover?

It is not merely a question of the need to complete the historical record. It is a matter of national security today.

If a support network was available to the terrorists before 9/11, why should we think it has now disbanded or been rolled up? It may still be in place, capable of supporting al-Qaeda or other extremist groups that hate America — of which there are many.

This is also about justice. Thousands of Americans, who suffered unimaginable loss, have been denied their day in court in part because evidence of support was either never gathered by law enforcement or remains locked away, sealed as “Classified.”

On January 21st, the 9/11CC board sent an email out to all donors to the organization. That email was posted to a related thread at TruthAction within a week, and after being posted on a FaceBook page. Among many details in the letter from the board, the following is highlighted here:

….. we have a responsibility to relate to you some very serious and unfortunate news: There has come a parting of the ways of Senator Mike Gravel from the rest of the 9-11cc team. Briefly, the pivotal event of that parting came to our attention in mid-December when we found that our bank account, under the sole control of Mike Gravel, was being tapped for large, unauthorized expenditures paid to promote an unrelated campaign of Mike’s – his National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D). When this disturbing item was put on our Campaign Team’s agenda for the next team meeting, Mike Gravel, for the first time, declined to participate, and instead sent a long letter in which he expressed his intention to dissolve the legal entity that our 9-11cc organization had established to enable us to collect funds. Mike Gravel further informed us of his plan to transfer the 9-11cc’s funds to his own, unrelated NI4D campaign. Both of Mike’s proposals were rejected by all other members of the board. Although as a Board we had been in discussion for several months about refinements to our path going forward, these radical, unilateral decisions by Mike Gravel came as a complete shock to us. Shortly thereafter, our treasurer, George Ripley, made an unsuccessful attempt to have our accountant freeze our bank account to prevent further unauthorized and unaccounted-for expenditures. As our Board prepared to meet two nights later to consider our response (a meeting Mike Gravel again chose not to attend), we found that $25,000 more had been withdrawn that same day from our bank account, leaving only about a $6,000 balance (now ~$1000).

We tried in vain up to and throughout the Christmas holidays to use reason and peer pressure to get Mike Gravel back into productive communication with the rest of the Board, and to persuade him to return the donated funds to the Citizen’s Commission Campaign….

The 9/11CC Board obviously made a mistake by allowing the money to be in the sole control of Mike Gravel. That mistake does not excuse Mike Gravel’s actions.

(2):

Two weeks later on February 3rd Mike Gravel responded to the 9/11CC board email. Gravel’s response was posted to the Truth Action forum again. The important points from Gravel’s response are covered below:

In May 2011, Ken Jenkins and George Ripley were pushing me into a leadership role within the 911 movement that I was reluctant to take on…

…The forms creating the California Recipient Committee called the “Citizens 911 Commission” were filed on May 13, 2011 and received by the Secretary of State on May 16th. My name as the “sole principal” is the only name associated with the entity in California. I secured an EIN number from the IRS on that basis and opened an account at Wells Fargo. No other names or persons are legally associated with this California entity or its bank account. As the authorized signer who opened the account at Wells Fargo, I made provisions with the bank for Jenkins, Belitsos and Ripley to access the account only to view its activity in real-time…

…

As a California Recipient Committee, we had no operable bylaws and none were required to be filed by the state. I subsequently drafted Articles and Bylaws in anticipation of creating an IRS C4 corporation, which was the planned next step in our logical growth, going from a working group of volunteers into a legal corporate entity.

Initially, our intent was to file an initiative in California. I visited and worked with the attorneys at the State’s Legislative Council in Sacramento, drafting my concept into a legally acceptable initiative proposal. However, it became obvious that a California initiative campaign was out of the question at this time; it would take several million dollars to qualify an initiative for the ballot and more to wage a viable enactment campaign.

Since we planned no political activity in California and were limited in accepting foreign contributions, it was understood by all those involved (Jenkins, Freeland and Ripley) that we would dissolve the Recipient Committee before the end of the year or face extensive and expensive reporting requirements that were irrelevant to our national and global activity. In the event of dissolution, California law is very clear; whatever monies are in the Committee’s bank account must be donated to a government recognized charity or returned to the donors on a pro rata basis….

A pro rata return to donors would have been expensive accounting-wise and of de minim{i}s impact to all but one donor. I chose to donate all the funds in the account to the Democracy Foundation, a 501 c 3 charity recognized under federal law. The Democracy Foundation, which I founded and chaired, is the educational sponsor of the National Citizens Initiative, an initiative that when enacted into law will empower citizens to make laws in every government jurisdiction. The process to enact the National Citizens Initiative can be undertaking in any country where citizens are allowed to vote. Obviously, if we able to enact the National Citizens Initiative, it would provide an excellent opportunity to enact a federal law creating a new Citizens 911 Commission with federal powers far superior to anything we would expect to secure with a state initiative.

…All told we raised around $85,000 in 2011; and more than half has been spent on travel and overhead…

Mike Gravel simply chose to redistribute the funds to an organization he founded and chairs without permission from the donors.

Maybe Gravel thought people were donating to him and not to the organization of an idea for a citizens 9/11 investigation?That would have been the wrong assumption: Gravel was given donations by 9/11 activists, plain and simple.

The irony of giving stolen money to a “Democracy Foundation” that the thief founded and chairs is not lost here. Is this Gravel’s idea Citizen Power?

Senator Gravel read the “Pentagon Papers” into the Senate record in 1971, and thus helped bring an end to the Viet Nam war. Currently, over 1300 architects and engineers are calling for a new investigation of “9/11.” [See http://ae911truth.org/] Senator Gravel and concerned citizens are joining together to raise funds to file an initiative in California to enact a 9/11 Truth Commission law. The goal is a new commission untainted by politics and with subpoena powers.

BERKELEY, Calif., May 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Over the last eight years, numerous inadequate government investigations have allowed many myths and misconceptions about the events of September 11, 2001 to foster; especially the unprecedented destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) skyscrapers 1, 2 and 7. In order to expose these myths, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 (AE911Truth.org) and Firefighters for 9/11 Truth (Firefightersfor911truth.org) are pleased to announce two events:

— Friday, May 7, 2010 – 7:30 PM at the Marin County Civic Center, Showcase Theater, San Rafael, CA 94903. Tickets $10 for the public, and free to the first 50 Firefighters at the door.

— Saturday, May 8, 2010 – 7:30 PM at the Historic Bal Theatre, 14808 East 14th Street, San Leandro, CA 94578. Tickets $10 for the public, and free to all Firefighters. — The May 8th event will be available via live video streaming at:AE911Truth.org

At these events, Erik Lawyer, a 14-year Seattle Firefighter and founder of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, and Richard Gage, AIA, Architect and founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth will expose many of the 9/11 myths in an interactive, dynamic multimedia presentation. Using well-documented forensic evidence, news footage and eyewitness testimony, they will address and correct myths such as: “The fires were hot enough from ordinary jet fuel to weaken the structural steel; The floors of the towers collapsed like pancakes;” and “there were only two skyscrapers to collapse on 9/11.” Demolition contractor Tom Sullivan will present why he “has no doubt that World Trade Center Building 7 was a timed explosive implosion event whose destruction was certainly not due to fire as reported.” Mr. Sullivan worked for Controlled Demolitions Inc., the top rated explosive demolition firm in the world owned by the Loizeaux family, during the years surrounding 9/11 as an explosive loader for three years. He placed explosives in many buildings to prepare them for demolition.

Officials said that Iraq had weapons of Mass Destruction: They Were Wrong. Officials said that the 9/11 attacks could not have been imagined, or planned for: They Were Wrong. Officials said that Osama Bin Laden confessed to 9/11: They Were Wrong. Officials say that the War of terror is necessary: They Are Wrong. Officials say that Iran and Ahmadinejad are terrorists that must be stopped…..

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, asking him to launch an investigation into the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, news reports said on Monday.

“The minimum expectation from your excellency is to set up an independent and trusted fact-finding group to comprehensively investigate the real factors behind September 11,” Ahmadinejad said in the text of the letter carried by official news agencies.

They did not say when the letter was sent.

The hardliner, who in March dismissed 9/11 as a “big lie,” said in the letter that the attacks “were the main pretext for attacks” by NATO on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thank you for sticking with it and making it easy for the City Council to listen to us with your polite and focused manner! So far all of the offices have told us they were pleased with how we have been communicating our message. Rest assured they are taking notice of what we have to say.

As we head into the final seven days of our campaign, we will be contacting some key council members whose support we will be counting on to make the City Council address Building 7, The Salomon Brothers building. So please be sure to continue what you are doing and make the effort end with a crescendo.

If you haven’t gotten involved yet, please consider doing so. One participant had this to say on Friday: “I’m pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to make a few simple calls to the Council Members. Their aides seem friendly and sincere, and are telling me they’re getting over 100 calls per day. They all promise that the Members will be looking into WTC 7. It feels good to help spread the word.”